Source: PIB
Subject: Art and Culture
Context: President of India highlighted the role of language and literature in binding communities during the centenary celebrations of the Ol Chiki script and Santali Language Day.
About The Santhali Language:
What it is?
- Santhali is one of India’s most ancient living tribal languages, primarily spoken by the Santhal community and recognised in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Origin:
- Belongs to the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic language family, distinct from Indo-European languages.
- Traditionally transmitted through oral literature, songs, folklore and rituals.
- Acquired its own script, Ol Chiki, in 1925, developed by Pandit Raghunath Murmu, giving the language a written identity.
Current status:
- Included in the Eighth Schedule through the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003.
- Spoken by about 7 million people in India, mainly across Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar, and also in Nepal and Bangladesh.
Key features:
- Distinct script – Ol Chiki: A phonetic and scientific script designed to accurately represent Santhali sounds, unlike earlier borrowed scripts.
- Austroasiatic linguistic traits: Agglutinative structure, tonal elements, and word formation through suffixes, shared with related Munda languages like Ho and Mundari.
- Strong oral tradition: Rich corpus of folk songs, myths and storytelling that preserves Santhal history, ecology and social values.
- Cultural identity marker: Language and script function as symbols of tribal self-respect, cohesion and continuity.
